For all the noise people make to keep blacks and poors away from a voting booth, voter impersonation fraud is an incredibly dumb crime. If the person you impersonated tries to vote in the same election, you’re busted. If they knowingly let you vote for them it seems likely that they would have voted the same way. If you vote in more than one precinct you will get flagged in the first half-assed check of that year’s voting records.

So let’s all applaud Robert D. Monroe of Wisconsin, supporter of Scott Walker and criminal mastermind. Investigators “considered [him] to be the most prolific multiple voter in memory”. Monroe earned his kingpin status with a grand total of eight extra votes in five elections.

You have to see this as an inevitable side effect of those drugs that FOX puts in the kool-aid. Some folks genuinely believe that new black panthers use obamaphones to co-ordinate buses full of vote fraudsters from out of state (actual allegations). If those people get away with it then maybe everyone should try voting twice.

It seems to be the case, unfortunately, that many of the barriers that can be used to keep the very poor and the working poor less able to vote are things that just do not matter to the vast majority of American voters. If that is so, I see few ways that many of these narrowly tailored laws can be defeated – those not clearly unconstitutional.

The thing to do is to make sure that the process of gaining identification is as easy and as inexpensive (if not free) as possible. I think that those are arguments that can be more easily won in many jurisdictions.

I live in Minnesota, where the Al Franken recount was probably the most closely scrutinized election in memory. And the fraud uncovered then? Pretty much zippo.

The organization I used to work for even called every county attorney in MN (they prosecute voter fraud … were there to be some). Nearly every atty reported back, and the only prosecutions were for felons who voted before they were off parole, which is a crime in MN but a drivers license wouldn’t tell the election judge the voter was still “on paper.” And I think 4 of the 5 weren’t prosecuted because their parole officer told them the worng thing.

In other words, the most closely post-mortemed election in MN history resulted in zero fraud busses. Zero dead people voting. Zero imersonation fraud. Zero.

These assholes have created a “problem” out of thin air. The only fraud that does happenis GOP fraud as you note. Huh.

Republicans seem to think it’s OK for them to vote multiple times, in one election. But there’s a huge problem with The Others, The Ni_Clangs driving around voting multiple times, even though NO One has ever been arrested for this.

Thus we need to make it hard for people to vote. This all makes sense in some other universe, I’m sure; it make no sense whatsoever here and now. None.

As usual, the Republican psychosis expresses itself in oppressing others to the maximum extent possible!

This is the problem with making votes binary. If only people were allowed to vote according to the strength of their support for candidate X or Y, then none of these devout Republicans would be forced to break the law. It’s our fault, really, not theirs — at best we are accomplices.

Some college student, somewhere, voted in both her home state and her college state. I can just feel it in my bones. Or maybe I read it in a plain-text e-mail with lost of asterisks and ALL CAPS. Anyway, its true!
So fraud. There, I told you.

As I have said before, narrowing the electorate to become congruent with the ruling class (and the one that receives all of society’s benefits) is the hallmark of apartheid. And although I find the comparison to be most apt, if you point this out to Republicans, they’ll begin to sputter. Seems they don’t like being placed in the same boat as a bunch of racist fascists. And it is our obligation to put them there.

I loved the way it was covered online. completely open, including providing samples of disputed ballots so the public could see what constituted problematic stray marks, etc. It was nerve wracking in a way but also fun to see a community make the decision that it was important to physically review every single vote under dispute.

Some folks genuinely believe that new black panthers use obamaphones to co-ordinate HUD-financed buses full of vote fraudsters from out of state

We mustn’t forget that this whole scenario is a Big Gubmint, urban, IslamoFascoSoshulist thing. Part of the outrage is the conviction that the Big Bad Federal Government is somehow out to deprive the Good Self-Sufficient States from conducting their lawful business.

Dollars to doughnuts the wingnuts in the MS polling places will be looking less at voter IDs (searching for forged papers) than at the vehicles in the parking lot (searching for out-of-state license plates).

@J R in WV: The problem isn’t with “The Ni_Clangs driving around voting multiple times” – the problem is with them voting even once. Part of Tentherism is the conviction that even 3/5 vote is too much for Those People.

Republicans seem to think it’s OK for them to vote multiple times, in one election. But there’s a huge problem with The Others, The Ni_Clangs driving around voting multiple times, even though NO One has ever been arrested for this.

You’ve actually got the causality backwards – and I think that Tim has it correct.

It’s because The Others are “cheating” – as widely documented on Fox News and Breitbart.com – that it’s justifiable for the poor put-upon Repubicans to cheat themselves. They’re just “leveling the playing field!”

What I find hilarious in this is that Fox News has actually managed to convince some really stupid people that “voter impersonation fraud” is actually effective at manipulating the vote. It’s a horrible scheme for stuffing the ballot box – this guy cast only eight extra votes ACROSS FIVE DIFFERENT ELECTIONS. That’s an average of 1.6 extra votes per election. This is the least effective form of ballot box stuffing that I’ve ever heard of.

In the presidential election, Monroe cast an in-person absentee ballot in Shorewood on Nov. 1 and drove a rental car to Lebanon, Ind., where he showed his Indiana driver’s license to vote in person on election day, Nov. 6, the complaint charges. Monroe owns a house there, according to the complaint.

Indiana has voter ID and he still managed to vote illegally in person!

You CANNOT talk to conservative folk about voting before they bring up how much ‘voter fraud’ the Democrat party does by having the dead vote.

They can’t ever point to ‘proof’, but their brother’s uncle’s (on their mothers side) cousin was a monitor an saw it happen. Same as welfare ‘cheats’, they ‘know someone’ who saw ‘those people’ living large by having kids and raking in undeserved cash.

A Republican precinct chairman running for a seat on the Fort Bend County Commissioner’s Court has cast ballots in both Texas and Pennsylvania in the last three federal elections, official records in both states show.

Bruce J. Fleming, a Sugar Land resident running for Precinct 1 commissioner, voted in person in Sugar Land in 2006, 2008 and 2010 and by mail in each of those years in Yardley, Pa., according to election records in both states.

Fleming, who owns a home in Yardley, voted for Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2008 presidential primary in Texas. His wife, Nancy Fleming, who is listed as a resident of Yardley, voted by mail in both places in the 2010 general election, records show.

“The less said is better,” Bruce Fleming said when contacted by phone late Tuesday afternoon. “Until we can determine the situation, I can’t really comment.”

What I find hilarious in this is that Fox News has actually managed to convince some really stupid people that “voter impersonation fraud” is actually effective at manipulating the vote.

One of my brother’s (many) wingnut friends laughed hollowly and knowingly when I told him there was no meaningful voter fraud. He informed me that the only reason Obummer had won — both times — was massive voter fraud and I was just too naive — or maybe even stupid — not to realize it.

They can’t ever point to ‘proof’, but their brother’s uncle’s (on their mothers side) cousin was a monitor an saw it happen. Same as welfare ‘cheats’, they ‘know someone’ who saw ‘those people’ living large by having kids and raking in undeserved cash.

I don’t do nearly as much volunteer work as I should.

Last summer, however, I helped out my grandmother with one of her such activities – her Catholic group that runs a soup kitchen for the homeless. Waiting in line was a white guy, infuriated by all the black people that were… there for the same reason he was. How did I know this? Well, mostly from the loud comments he was making to his SO about all those lazy fucking black people who should be looking for a job instead of depending on others. Right before he took his food handout and went and ate it at one of the tables.

I always think of him now whenever I read/hear a conservative talk about their trusted sources that are how they know all about “welfare cheats.”

During the debates over our ID law, the only real election fraud that came up involved absentee ballots, which unless things have changed, were exempt from the ID requirement.

The only absentee ballot fraud locally I know of involved a Democrat who was ‘helping’ people in nursing homes fill out ballots.
Not to sound all Village about it, but this doesn’t imply that the Democratic Party itself is corrupt, but that corrupt people exist no matter where you go.

Though some local Democrats are real swine, and the only time I ever vote GOP anymore is when and if one of their names appears on the ballot.

All Rethuglican concern about “voting fraud” is projection. Every last bit. Nearly all documented voting fraud is perpetrated by Rethugs on both the individual voter level and the voting official level.

DIdn’t see your comment before I posted mine, but this is all about projection. Every last bit. Rethuglicans worry that Democrats would do what Rethuglicans would do if Rethuglicans could get away with it.

One of my brother’s (many) wingnut friends laughed hollowly and knowingly when I told him there was no meaningful voter fraud. He informed me that the only reason Obummer had won — both times — was massive voter fraud and I was just too naive — or maybe even stupid — not to realize it.

Oh yes, it’s an article of faith among the teabagger set. There was such obvious voter fraud, you see, that it’s the only explanation for Obama’s two big victories. They know that. It’s why they’re fighting so hard to “preserve the integrity of the vote” winkwinknudgenudge.

I suppose that wingers were ‘trying out’ voter fraud just for demonstration purposes, to see how it was done. Or… maybe… it was an ‘independent journalistic investigation’. Or… something.

IIRC, there actually were a couple of dumbasses in a recent election who committed voter fraud and then blogged about it. They apparently didn’t realize that “we committed that crime to show that the crime was possible” is not an actual legal defense.

So let’s all applaud Robert D. Monroe of Wisconsin, supporter of Scott Walker and criminal mastermind. Investigators “considered [him] to be the most prolific multiple voter in memory”. Monroe earned his kingpin status with a grand total of eight extra votes in five elections.

IOW, the right-wing shouting about voter fraud is yet another example of right-wing projection?

If the person you impersonated tries to vote in the same election, you’re busted.

I wouldn’t be surprised if in certain parts of this great nation, they would (depending on the skin tone, ethnic origins, gender-identity/orientation and/or class) bust both you and the person you impersonated … because “we can’t tell which one of you is the real you”

You’ve never heard of the purported voter fraud in Chicago that won Kennedy the 1960 election?

Did not say I hadn’t heard the stories. Asked how much weight Joel Hanes gave them.

From your own reference:

Five decades later, there’s no definitive answer. “My sense is nobody really knows and nobody’s ever going to know,” says Edmund Kallina Jr., a University of Central Florida history professor and author of the new book Kennedy v. Nixon: The Presidential Election of 1960. He believes vote fraud did occur in Chicago and elsewhere in Illinois, but not on a scale that changed the outcome.